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FF7 - fic - Enemy Skill - chpt.1 part1
Guess who is la~te on her NaNo~
I'm like 2000 words late, AND I still have today's to write on top of it. ...So here is some more of the FF7 pack bonding/slave AU fic instead. I make total sense.
Prologue - Cloud.
Sephiroth was used to being alone in his own head. More or less, inasmuch as one could be alone when Jenova the All-Knowing had birthed you. But she was a goddess. Her thoughts didn't merge with his thoughts; there was no dialogue. They were echoes from far away, that he was privileged enough to hear better than any other.
You didn't dialogue with a goddess -- dialogue implied possible disagreement. You listened. Sometimes you said "As you command, Mother" and you went to do as she bid. Most of the time she was like the air, like the wind -- always present or else you couldn't breathe, but her touch so light you stopped being aware of it.
The scope of Jenova's attention was so much wider than one single life anyway, even for one so privileged in her eye as he.
He was used to being alone.
Zack would have splashed and swam his way across the natural spring. He'd have had servants coming and going, asking for more rice wine, and then grimacing and laughing at the unusual taste. He'd have discussed their colonels and ambassadors -- reminded Sephiroth of their existence. He'd have settled down and watched the moon in silence, eventually, his foot bumping Sephiroth's under the surface of the hot water.
The night sky looked immense from this place. The top of the mountain stood at his back, black, bare rock eating at a corner of the field of stars. From where he sat he couldn't even see the capital of Wutai spread out under him -- just the sky.
It was to the point Sephiroth would have greeted an assassin with relief.
He frowned, slipped under the water to feel the warmth on his skin a last time, and resurfaced in the cool air. There was no point to this. The palace's private hot springs should have been relaxing; instead he was just as tense and watchful now as he had been all day, sitting straight and expressionless in his ceremonial uniform as his people's negotiators used his presence as a threat to keep the Wutaian leaders cowed.
He waded to the edge of the pool, stepped out onto polished black marble, just as dark as the sky. Even the benches were made of dark wood; his splayed hand looked like snow in contrast, all warmer hues lost. The only torch he'd bothered to light hung toward the exit, not making much of a difference. He didn't mind; he'd always had better eyes than most. He found towels, sat on the bench, squeezed water out of his waist-length hair as his gaze traveled over the scenery once again.
It was beautiful, eerily so.
It was boring.
Dry again, he put his clothes back on. Buckles and straps and buttons, gloves, boots. He picked up his sword. He felt no difference in his level of relaxation.
The hot springs had been useless to him, just like his presence was useless to secure the submission of Wutai. They had lost already -- badly so. There was no more fighting, wouldn't be at least until they rallied and the war flared again, but that wouldn't be for a year or more. Sephiroth's only use in this place was that of a figurehead.
He was a warrior; he should go where the fighting was. Or where it was going to be soon. Not where only cooling embers were left.
He should... He wanted to be where Zack was, where Sephiroth had to send him, because someone had to go and Sephiroth himself couldn't.
It wasn't proper for a General to go chasing after a subordinate, instead of the other way around. It wasn't proper for him to abandon such a huge, tactically vital battlefield.
For clan to seek clan, though, it was... natural.
He was Goddess-born. He'd always been strange. But he still remembered Colonel Rethlik's startled face when Sephiroth said, 'Fair will go in my stead', the man's quick look at his own aide de camp, the aide's 'But I was given to understand... Isn't he your only...?'
He was. But someone had to go and Sephiroth couldn't, and so that was it.
Well, now he could.
It was late, but he wasn't in the least tired. He would pack, write a few letters, give orders to the warriors stationed there, and leave at first light. He walked out, ducking under the heavy sacred ropes hanging from the wooden gates.
"Defiler of our sacred temples, I challenge you!"
The presence suddenly blocking his way down the winding mountain path wasn't much of a surprise. He couldn't sense Wutaian presences, but he had known beforehand that this isolated spot was perfect for ambushes -- he'd chosen to go at least half for that very reason, to draw out any remaining dissidents, if they still existed. The shrillness of the voice, now, that was another matter.
The child barely reached his waist. His ribcage, if he wanted to be generous.
The war boomerang in her hands was no joke at all, sharp edges long as her arm, and while she didn't hold it with the perfect confidence of an experienced warrior, she knew her basics well enough to do some damage, if one gave her a chance.
"Challenge?" he repeated softly, though his deep voice resonated against the cliff.
"Are you scared to accept? Or perhaps do you not have enough honor to know--"
"You talk of honor, and yet there are ninjas in the shadows. That is not what I call honorable."
The child stiffened. Sephiroth did not trust the total silence of the night, but her expression changed too quickly to be faked. Shock, and then anger and shame.
"Huang!"
Even to Sephiroth's eyes the old man's movements were hard to follow. He saw him emerge from his hiding place, but he knew anyone else wouldn't have noticed before Huang was halfway to his young charge, and that was too long a time when faced with one who could strike so swiftly from afar.
"Is that all?" Sephiroth inquired. "I do not believe so." Because so many ninjas had died in the end -- and one of the few old masters left should have been off somewhere nursing his wounds, knowing he had a whole generation to train in secret before all his secrets were lost, instead of running in the night after a random child. She wasn't random. And if she wasn't then they weren't going to have only one protector to keep track of her.
"Is he telling the truth?" the child asked in a voice trembling with offense, her eyes still glued to his every movement. "You guys -- don't interfere! That's an order!"
The child... amused him, he thought, though not in a mocking way. Suicidally brave, and prideful enough to choke on it.
Zack would have liked her, and been disappointed that she would have hated him.
Two other ninja... three... They didn't move, but the total stillness allowed him to stretch his senses. They had erased their scents with herbs, and they breathed silently, in rhythm with the night wind, but they couldn't erase the beat of their hearts.
They were terrified, but he knew that it would take very little to break the watchful stillness of the moment, and then they would attack, fast and hard and without regard for their own lives.
They weren't scared for themselves, but for the child.
He should probably kill them. Ninjas were formidable enemies, the only ones of the Earth warriors who had ever come close to truly threatening his life. A beaten country had no use for more weapons, and no right to hold them.
"I'm telling you, don't interfere. This is my fight. My honor. So just butt out!"
Under his eyes, she trembled a last time -- anger and burning determination, a refusal to give in to her fear -- and she stilled. Ready.
It wasn't perfect by far, but if she was a day over twelve years he would be surprised. Even amongst his people any kind of mastery of self at that age wasn't all that common.
"Lady Kisaragi," Sephiroth said, allowing her that courtesy. "Accepting your challenge tonight would endanger the peace treaty. I cannot allow that."
She snarled like a griffin kit, silly downy fluff mixed with sincere, feral threat. "Coward!"
Huang stiffened, but Sephiroth had been insulted by much more powerful people, and the accusation was too off-base to stick.
"Do you truly think I am? Then why did you offer me a honorable match?"
Embarrassment briefly crossed her pointy little face. "... No. I -- don't. I -- let my anger speak." It seemed to cost her to push the words out. "But you're insulting me as well! The treaty -- hah! That's just an excuse."
"It is not. If I fight you now, then the peaceful intent of the treaty is proven false. Your people might attempt to fight again. They are exhausted, injured, and we hold all the major fortresses. More will die." His voice went quieter. "Or they might not fight, and then the shame of it will break them even farther than they already are."
And then they would be useless. That was Lord Shinra's opinion. Sephiroth just thought it would be wasteful, unnecessary. ... Regrettable, too.
The girl's weapon dipped down slightly, shaking along with her hands. The old ninja beside her didn't seem as battle-ready as before -- more weary.
"My honor --" she said anyway, tone almost pleading at the injustice of it all.
Sephiroth didn't deal in justice. There was no justice in war. Just the law of the strongest, the survival of the pack.
Zack's law included justice, though. Mercy as well, but that was something that just wasn't in Sephiroth to give.
"You may challenge me again in five years," Sephiroth offered, because he couldn't give anything else and she might not have accepted it anyway. "Let your people recover. Train yourself, so you will have a better chance."
"I knew it!" the girl suddenly yelled, pointing accusingly at him. "It's not the treaty at all! You just think I'm too small to bother with!"
Sephiroth gave a slow blink. That was a sudden mood shift he hadn't seen coming. He had some skill at reading Earth People faces, but it seemed he still had a lot left to learn. In the darkness, one of the younger ninjas flinched enough for Sephiroth to pinpoint him precisely. It seemed he wasn't the only startled one.
Once again he considered killing the ninjas. Even so few in numbers, they might go very far for revenge, and they were much better suited to sabotage than open warfare.
The girl was glaring at him, cheeks puffed out like a put-upon ground squirrel. "You think so, don't you. I shouldn't even fight you 'cause I'm too small."
"Well." He paused, looked for the right words. "I am significantly out of your weight class."
"You're always gonna be out of my weight class, you're so ridiculously tall. That's just an excuse!"
It was, at that. He stared at her for a second; she didn't flinch from his eyes, marked by the All-Knowing Jenova.
She was brave. He could give her that much. He might as well offer her the respect of speaking frankly. "You must allow your father to train another heir to replace you, should you die in combat. Give him five years, at least. I will not accept your challenge before then."
She stayed silent for a long time. Sephiroth waited, feeling blind, having no idea how to tell which direction her thoughts would take. The uncertainty made it interesting. He thought he could guess which way she would jump, though, and she didn't disappoint him.
"...Fine," she said. She lifted her boomerang and holstered it, and nodded. "General Sephiroth. See you in five years."
"Very well. I will be waiting, Lady Kisaragi."
Huang bowed to him before he melted in the darkness after her, something that must have cost his pride quite a bit, but the steely glint in his eyes said his gratefulness wouldn't stop his knife from sinking deep between Sephiroth's ribs when the day came.
Sephiroth waited a minute and then two, feeling the mountain wind ruffle his drying hair. He had let the ninjas live. That all but guaranteed that in a few years they might rise to fight again. Lord Shinra would be very displeased. Very surprised, also, that the son of Jenova the Terrible had afforded even an inch of respect to any of them, mind-blind, powerless, inferior beings that they were.
He smiled faintly and started down the slope. He thought Zack would understand.
I'm like 2000 words late, AND I still have today's to write on top of it. ...So here is some more of the FF7 pack bonding/slave AU fic instead. I make total sense.
Prologue - Cloud.
Sephiroth was used to being alone in his own head. More or less, inasmuch as one could be alone when Jenova the All-Knowing had birthed you. But she was a goddess. Her thoughts didn't merge with his thoughts; there was no dialogue. They were echoes from far away, that he was privileged enough to hear better than any other.
You didn't dialogue with a goddess -- dialogue implied possible disagreement. You listened. Sometimes you said "As you command, Mother" and you went to do as she bid. Most of the time she was like the air, like the wind -- always present or else you couldn't breathe, but her touch so light you stopped being aware of it.
The scope of Jenova's attention was so much wider than one single life anyway, even for one so privileged in her eye as he.
He was used to being alone.
Zack would have splashed and swam his way across the natural spring. He'd have had servants coming and going, asking for more rice wine, and then grimacing and laughing at the unusual taste. He'd have discussed their colonels and ambassadors -- reminded Sephiroth of their existence. He'd have settled down and watched the moon in silence, eventually, his foot bumping Sephiroth's under the surface of the hot water.
The night sky looked immense from this place. The top of the mountain stood at his back, black, bare rock eating at a corner of the field of stars. From where he sat he couldn't even see the capital of Wutai spread out under him -- just the sky.
It was to the point Sephiroth would have greeted an assassin with relief.
He frowned, slipped under the water to feel the warmth on his skin a last time, and resurfaced in the cool air. There was no point to this. The palace's private hot springs should have been relaxing; instead he was just as tense and watchful now as he had been all day, sitting straight and expressionless in his ceremonial uniform as his people's negotiators used his presence as a threat to keep the Wutaian leaders cowed.
He waded to the edge of the pool, stepped out onto polished black marble, just as dark as the sky. Even the benches were made of dark wood; his splayed hand looked like snow in contrast, all warmer hues lost. The only torch he'd bothered to light hung toward the exit, not making much of a difference. He didn't mind; he'd always had better eyes than most. He found towels, sat on the bench, squeezed water out of his waist-length hair as his gaze traveled over the scenery once again.
It was beautiful, eerily so.
It was boring.
Dry again, he put his clothes back on. Buckles and straps and buttons, gloves, boots. He picked up his sword. He felt no difference in his level of relaxation.
The hot springs had been useless to him, just like his presence was useless to secure the submission of Wutai. They had lost already -- badly so. There was no more fighting, wouldn't be at least until they rallied and the war flared again, but that wouldn't be for a year or more. Sephiroth's only use in this place was that of a figurehead.
He was a warrior; he should go where the fighting was. Or where it was going to be soon. Not where only cooling embers were left.
He should... He wanted to be where Zack was, where Sephiroth had to send him, because someone had to go and Sephiroth himself couldn't.
It wasn't proper for a General to go chasing after a subordinate, instead of the other way around. It wasn't proper for him to abandon such a huge, tactically vital battlefield.
For clan to seek clan, though, it was... natural.
He was Goddess-born. He'd always been strange. But he still remembered Colonel Rethlik's startled face when Sephiroth said, 'Fair will go in my stead', the man's quick look at his own aide de camp, the aide's 'But I was given to understand... Isn't he your only...?'
He was. But someone had to go and Sephiroth couldn't, and so that was it.
Well, now he could.
It was late, but he wasn't in the least tired. He would pack, write a few letters, give orders to the warriors stationed there, and leave at first light. He walked out, ducking under the heavy sacred ropes hanging from the wooden gates.
"Defiler of our sacred temples, I challenge you!"
The presence suddenly blocking his way down the winding mountain path wasn't much of a surprise. He couldn't sense Wutaian presences, but he had known beforehand that this isolated spot was perfect for ambushes -- he'd chosen to go at least half for that very reason, to draw out any remaining dissidents, if they still existed. The shrillness of the voice, now, that was another matter.
The child barely reached his waist. His ribcage, if he wanted to be generous.
The war boomerang in her hands was no joke at all, sharp edges long as her arm, and while she didn't hold it with the perfect confidence of an experienced warrior, she knew her basics well enough to do some damage, if one gave her a chance.
"Challenge?" he repeated softly, though his deep voice resonated against the cliff.
"Are you scared to accept? Or perhaps do you not have enough honor to know--"
"You talk of honor, and yet there are ninjas in the shadows. That is not what I call honorable."
The child stiffened. Sephiroth did not trust the total silence of the night, but her expression changed too quickly to be faked. Shock, and then anger and shame.
"Huang!"
Even to Sephiroth's eyes the old man's movements were hard to follow. He saw him emerge from his hiding place, but he knew anyone else wouldn't have noticed before Huang was halfway to his young charge, and that was too long a time when faced with one who could strike so swiftly from afar.
"Is that all?" Sephiroth inquired. "I do not believe so." Because so many ninjas had died in the end -- and one of the few old masters left should have been off somewhere nursing his wounds, knowing he had a whole generation to train in secret before all his secrets were lost, instead of running in the night after a random child. She wasn't random. And if she wasn't then they weren't going to have only one protector to keep track of her.
"Is he telling the truth?" the child asked in a voice trembling with offense, her eyes still glued to his every movement. "You guys -- don't interfere! That's an order!"
The child... amused him, he thought, though not in a mocking way. Suicidally brave, and prideful enough to choke on it.
Zack would have liked her, and been disappointed that she would have hated him.
Two other ninja... three... They didn't move, but the total stillness allowed him to stretch his senses. They had erased their scents with herbs, and they breathed silently, in rhythm with the night wind, but they couldn't erase the beat of their hearts.
They were terrified, but he knew that it would take very little to break the watchful stillness of the moment, and then they would attack, fast and hard and without regard for their own lives.
They weren't scared for themselves, but for the child.
He should probably kill them. Ninjas were formidable enemies, the only ones of the Earth warriors who had ever come close to truly threatening his life. A beaten country had no use for more weapons, and no right to hold them.
"I'm telling you, don't interfere. This is my fight. My honor. So just butt out!"
Under his eyes, she trembled a last time -- anger and burning determination, a refusal to give in to her fear -- and she stilled. Ready.
It wasn't perfect by far, but if she was a day over twelve years he would be surprised. Even amongst his people any kind of mastery of self at that age wasn't all that common.
"Lady Kisaragi," Sephiroth said, allowing her that courtesy. "Accepting your challenge tonight would endanger the peace treaty. I cannot allow that."
She snarled like a griffin kit, silly downy fluff mixed with sincere, feral threat. "Coward!"
Huang stiffened, but Sephiroth had been insulted by much more powerful people, and the accusation was too off-base to stick.
"Do you truly think I am? Then why did you offer me a honorable match?"
Embarrassment briefly crossed her pointy little face. "... No. I -- don't. I -- let my anger speak." It seemed to cost her to push the words out. "But you're insulting me as well! The treaty -- hah! That's just an excuse."
"It is not. If I fight you now, then the peaceful intent of the treaty is proven false. Your people might attempt to fight again. They are exhausted, injured, and we hold all the major fortresses. More will die." His voice went quieter. "Or they might not fight, and then the shame of it will break them even farther than they already are."
And then they would be useless. That was Lord Shinra's opinion. Sephiroth just thought it would be wasteful, unnecessary. ... Regrettable, too.
The girl's weapon dipped down slightly, shaking along with her hands. The old ninja beside her didn't seem as battle-ready as before -- more weary.
"My honor --" she said anyway, tone almost pleading at the injustice of it all.
Sephiroth didn't deal in justice. There was no justice in war. Just the law of the strongest, the survival of the pack.
Zack's law included justice, though. Mercy as well, but that was something that just wasn't in Sephiroth to give.
"You may challenge me again in five years," Sephiroth offered, because he couldn't give anything else and she might not have accepted it anyway. "Let your people recover. Train yourself, so you will have a better chance."
"I knew it!" the girl suddenly yelled, pointing accusingly at him. "It's not the treaty at all! You just think I'm too small to bother with!"
Sephiroth gave a slow blink. That was a sudden mood shift he hadn't seen coming. He had some skill at reading Earth People faces, but it seemed he still had a lot left to learn. In the darkness, one of the younger ninjas flinched enough for Sephiroth to pinpoint him precisely. It seemed he wasn't the only startled one.
Once again he considered killing the ninjas. Even so few in numbers, they might go very far for revenge, and they were much better suited to sabotage than open warfare.
The girl was glaring at him, cheeks puffed out like a put-upon ground squirrel. "You think so, don't you. I shouldn't even fight you 'cause I'm too small."
"Well." He paused, looked for the right words. "I am significantly out of your weight class."
"You're always gonna be out of my weight class, you're so ridiculously tall. That's just an excuse!"
It was, at that. He stared at her for a second; she didn't flinch from his eyes, marked by the All-Knowing Jenova.
She was brave. He could give her that much. He might as well offer her the respect of speaking frankly. "You must allow your father to train another heir to replace you, should you die in combat. Give him five years, at least. I will not accept your challenge before then."
She stayed silent for a long time. Sephiroth waited, feeling blind, having no idea how to tell which direction her thoughts would take. The uncertainty made it interesting. He thought he could guess which way she would jump, though, and she didn't disappoint him.
"...Fine," she said. She lifted her boomerang and holstered it, and nodded. "General Sephiroth. See you in five years."
"Very well. I will be waiting, Lady Kisaragi."
Huang bowed to him before he melted in the darkness after her, something that must have cost his pride quite a bit, but the steely glint in his eyes said his gratefulness wouldn't stop his knife from sinking deep between Sephiroth's ribs when the day came.
Sephiroth waited a minute and then two, feeling the mountain wind ruffle his drying hair. He had let the ninjas live. That all but guaranteed that in a few years they might rise to fight again. Lord Shinra would be very displeased. Very surprised, also, that the son of Jenova the Terrible had afforded even an inch of respect to any of them, mind-blind, powerless, inferior beings that they were.
He smiled faintly and started down the slope. He thought Zack would understand.
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Sauf si c'est pour la fic Newtypeno subject
Probably this is the lack of my sleep still, but Zack was the guy in the prologue, yes? But Sephiroth doesn't care if he's missing? Although he cares for him in other ways? I may have missed something, sorry.
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Please be my guest, they're not mine, though ^^;
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Thanks for the link! It's much appreciated. And I think I have a number of friends who might be interested in this challenge.
Ohoho, I love watching people struggle. :Dno subject
Best. icon. ever.
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Also, I'm behind by like 4k words and I'm going to be without electricity for the next 3 days out in the middle of nowhereville... *stabbity stab stab laptop why can't you have like a tiny generator built in or something GAWD*
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No electricity for three days? I'd die D: XD;;; going camping?
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